Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 08/16/2011 at 8:34 AM News

The Popdust Files: adele, christina aguilera

Prepare for a good year of this, folks. When someone has the kind of breakout sales Adele does, everyone with a new album in its malleable phase is going to call that person their inspiration, soulmate, brilliance incarnate, anything that’ll persuade her or her team to spike their next releases with a burst of “Rolling in the Deep.” Will this lead to better songwriting or just a lot of snoozy, “tasteful” ballads? Are you an optimist or a cynic, and who tends to be right in the music world?

Ahem. Christina Aguilera’s clearly noticed Adele’s success; now she’s her “new inspiration,” according to British songwriter and new collaborator Talay Riley, not to mention her Twitpic buddy. She’s one of maybe five people in pop with the voice to actually cover “Rolling in the Deep” like it was meant, so we’ll give this a pass.

But will it work? On the one hand, Xtina hunkering back like this is the least surprising thing she could do–Bionic‘s more sedate tracks, the ones co-written with Sia, were some of the only ones critics liked. It’s still weird for Xtina to say this, considering she came first, but hey look over there at the Billboard 200 with Adele atop it! Anyway. Let’s run down the other details:

- Xtina wants the album to be about her “turbulent personal life”: Promising! Plenty to work with, too.
- Xtina wants a new Stripped: Not entirely promising; “Stripped” had some amazing songs, but it’s also stuffed with filler. (The thing’s 20 tracks long.)
- Xtina wants a new “Beautiful”: Well, duh.
- Talay Riley wrote a “better version of Leona Lewis’ ‘Collide’”: First, ouch. Second, glad to see someone agrees with us. But then, it wasn’t as if “Collide” was horrible, so we’ll call this promising. So: overall, more promising than not! Here’s hoping she proves us right.